RENEE
KAHN
P/f (203)322-6671
● reneekahn@optonline.net
ARTIST: Painter, Printmaker,
Photographer,
Designer, Exhibit Curator
EDUCATOR: Professor,
Art and Architectural History, Public Speaker
WRITER: Editor, Author and Designer of
Books and Newsletters
COMMUNITY: Founder, Director
Non-Profit Preservation Organization, Activist, Community Affairs and Urban Design,
Founder of Community Arts Organizations
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
My art is rooted
in German Expressionism, a period of social upheaval and cynicism similar to
our own. Satirical in nature, the work is
based on the humanist tradition and my desire to see people as more than
objects to be manipulated for personal
gain.
SUMMARY ART RESUME
Renee
Kahn graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York City and
received her graduate and undergraduate degrees in Art from the City College of
New York. She continued her studies at Columbia University’s School of
Architecture and Planning and ventured into printmaking with Antonio Frasconi
at the Pratt Graphic Art Center in New York City.
Kahn
taught art history at the University of Connecticut’s Stamford Campus from 1973
to 1998, specializing in American art and architecture as well as early 20th
century art. She used her expertise in American architecture to work as a
consultant in the field of historic preservation and to form the Historic
Neighborhood Preservation Program, Inc., a non-profit organization specializing
in the rehabilitation of inner-city housing. Her book, Preserving Porches, published by Henry
Holt in 1990, sold over 12,000 copies and is considered a classic in the field.
While raising a family, Kahn continued her
creative life. After leaving the Ward-Nasse Gallery on Prince Street in SOHO in
the late ‘70s, she removed herself from the New York art scene, but continued
to develop her distinctive satiric language, transforming her experiences as an
art historian and a preservationist into art. A monumental construction, Box
City,
consisting of over 150 tableaux that displayed the panorama of urban life was
shown to critical acclaim in 1996 at the SOHO 20 Gallery in New York City and a
portion is currently on permanent display at the Tully Center in Stamford.
Kahn has shown her work in close to one hundred
group and one-man shows throughout New England, including large-scale exhibits
at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester, N.H., the Hurlburt Gallery
in Greenwich, CT., the William Benton Museum in Storrs, CT. and the Stamford
Museum and Nature Center. In 2000, she curated and participated in a group show
entitled Vulcan’s Forge at the Museum, featuring sculptors who use
scrap metal in their work. In 2007, Kahn was invited to participate in a group
show of “shrines” at the Neuberger Museum in Purchase, N.Y., curated by
conceptualist artist, Lee Ming Wei. Her shrine was entitled Memorial to a Lost
City
and reflected her dual life as an artist and preservationist. In 2007, her boxes appeared in a
one-man show at the University of Connecticut gallery in Stamford and in 2009,
she had a solo show of paintings at the Loft Artists Gallery in Stamford. In
the summer of 2010, she participated in two exhibits entitled: Woman in the
21st Century: Margaret Fuller and the Sacred Marriage at the Pierre Menard
Gallery in Cambridge, MA. and the HP Garcia Gallery in Chelsea in New York
City.
Kahn is a founder of the Loft Artists
Association, a collaborative of artists working in Stamford’s South End. Over
the years, she has created monumental pieces for their annual open studios,
including a satiric performance piece for the overhead projector entitled Dance
to the Music. Her most recent example of art by projector was
presented in March, 2012 at Franklin Street Works, a non- profit,
experimental artists’ space in Stamford and consisted of super sized images she took of the Lower East Side
when she was in her twenties. She is currently working on a performance piece involving a cast of 8 foot tall cardboard puppets influenced by the German
satirist playwright, Berthold Brecht.
